


Two toy soldiers

by Estelle (Fielding)



Series: B99 Season 7 Countdown Project [22]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Academy Fic, Akiva cameo, Episode: s05e20 Show Me Going, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:14:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22358578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fielding/pseuds/Estelle
Summary: “During a training exercise, I shot him with a rubber bullet and somehow it got underneath his goggles and hit him in the eye.”Brett Booth remembers a young Jake Peralta from the Academy. From Show Me Going.
Series: B99 Season 7 Countdown Project [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1588849
Comments: 4
Kudos: 36





	Two toy soldiers

**Author's Note:**

> Story No. 22 of my Season 7 Countdown Project.

Brett rubs his shoulder as he storms back into the hallway, blinking back tears of pain. It won’t do to be seen crying in front of his multi-agency, multi-state task force on his first day. Even worse would be Peralta seeing him like this. Brett stops at the far end of the hall, plants his hands on his hips, takes a deep breath.

“Rogers!”

“Yes, sir.”

He can hear Rogers panting just behind him, on his bad side. Brett rolls his eyes.

“Send Detective Peralta out here. And get rid of that damn water cooler!”

+++

They met on their first day at the Academy and though it wasn’t instant friendship, they bonded a few weeks into the program when they were the only two recruits who still couldn’t manage a single pullup and an instructor made them run laps around Gramercy Park until they puked (Peralta threw up a full three and a half laps before Brett). That horrible night, while jogging in circles in the dark, they’d discovered a mutual fondness for Die Hard and Ninja Turtles and the Backstreet Boys. Within a week they were the Gramercy Guys, and they had a handshake they called the Dope Four, that involved walking past each other and smacking their fingers together behind their backs without looking.

They’d talked about being partners someday, working cases, having each other’s backs, going undercover as drug-running brothers or mafia cousins. Peralta liked to make up elaborate ops for them and Brett always played along. Though he’d rationally known there was no guarantee they would ever even be assigned to the same precinct after the Academy, Brett had at least imagined that they were on the same track. They’d surely cross paths on big cases, move up through the ranks together -- maybe grab beers a couple of times a year after Tactical Village Day.

And then Peralta had gone and shot him in the face. It had happened during their first training game with actual rubber bullets, and Brett’s whole world had gone sideways (literally, sometimes). Brett knew it was as much his own fault as Peralta’s that things had turned out so badly. He’d insisted he was fine after being hit -- had told everyone the bullet had ricocheted off his brow, that he was lucky it had missed the eye; even Brett hadn’t realized it had actually gotten lodged in there, perilously close to the optic nerve. It was two days later that the pain and blurriness got so bad he had to report to the infirmary. By then it was too late to save his vision.

Peralta had felt terrible, of course -- both right after the shot, and later, when things got worse. Brett could still remember the look on Peralta’s face when he’d seen that the eye had swollen to the size of a lime, bulging out of the socket and oozing something sticky and gray. Brett had taken a sick kind of satisfaction from the way Peralta went pale and a cold sweat broke out across his forehead. That was one of the last things he’d seen out of that right eye.

Brett had finished enough of the six-month program that they let him graduate the Academy, but he knew he’d never be in the field. He’d had a solid career anyway, eventually earning his detective’s badge with his intelligence and his creativity and a brutish, almost barbaric stubborn streak.

But he’d followed Peralta’s career too, and always at the back of his mind was what could have been. Brett had helped cracked a statewide drug ring and an international sex trafficking operation in his first two years out of the Academy. He’s put away dozens of murderers and thieves and just general assholes. But Brett has never jumped out of a chopper while tracking down $21 million in stolen cash. He’s never gone undercover with the mob or been put in witness protection. He’s never been sent to prison for a crime he didn’t commit, which in truth was probably really hellish but it sounds so dope.

Peralta has the career Brett always imagined for both of them.

Peralta is the worst.

+++

Brett’s more frustrated and embarrassed than angry by the time Peralta ducks out into the hallway, his partner from the Nine-Nine right behind. Peralta’s wearing a tie under his leather jacket and his hair is a little longer than he wore it back in the Academy. He looks super cool. He probably would have fit in great with Boomer Maxwell’s crew.

Brett balls his hands into fists at his sides.

Peralta throws him a half-watt grin and it’s obvious he’s nervous. “Hey, Booth, how’re the kids?”

“The oldest just graduated high school,” Brett says. He takes a deep breath. “You’re off the task force, Peralta.”

His partner throws a dramatic hand to his chest. “Not Jake! He already has the coolest catchphrase for when he solves this case. It’s-”

“Your partner’s off too,” Brett says.

“Booth,” Peralta says, “c’mon, man-”

“We’ve got everyone we need,” Brett says coolly.

They stare each other down a moment, Brett locking his good left eye on Peralta’s right. Peralta blinks first, and his whole body seems to deflate and he doesn’t look quite so awesome anymore. He looks younger, less confident. He looks like the kid who puked first at Gramercy Park.

Peralta finally shrugs and moves to walk by. He’s on Brett’s bad side, and Brett’s not sure what possesses him, but just as Peralta moves past, Brett sticks out his left hand blindly. Their fingers connect with a muffled but satisfying slap.

“Dope Four,” Peralta mutters, and then he laughs under his breath. Brett walks back into his task force meeting without looking back.

+++

Later, he’s listening to the police scanner with the rest of the NYPD as cops report to an active shooter in Brooklyn Heights. Brett knows the hotel where the shooter is holed up is not in the 99th, but he waits for it anyway -- waits for Peralta’s voice and his badge number. When it never comes, he’s relieved, for a lot of complicated reasons.

Brett sends a few pizzas to the precinct to help them get through the day. He signs it from the Six-Three.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> *Title is from Bikini Babe Workout (Bash Brothers).
> 
> *It was Akiva’s turn to get a character POV!
> 
> *I also really wish there was more Academy-fic. Ideally for Jake and Rosa, since they were there together, but really any of them.


End file.
